SC slams consortium on CLAT 2025 errors, “Why can't there be a permanent mechanism like NEET”

Supreme Court slams consortium on errors in key and paper-setting

As the bench of Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice AG Masih were hearing the petitions on CLAT 2025 results; the court observed there were many errors in the CLAT 2025 question paper and answer key. The court expressed hard disappointment over the manner the question paper was set. Justice Gavai said, “This sort of Consortium you have? All Vice Chancellors sitting together, calling themselves academicians of the highest repute?”

Further Justice Gavai said, “But why can't there be a permanent mechanism like NEET. Which Vice-Chancellors are framing these questions?”. In its order too, the bench observed, “We must express our anguish at the casual manner with which the respondent No.1(consortium) has been framing the questions for CLAT exam which involves aspirations of lakhs of students in the country. We may state that in academic matters, the court is always restrained in interfering as it does not possess expertise. However, when the academics themselves act in such a manner which affects the careers of lakhs of students, the court is left with no option.”

Prof. Samnad Basheer’s petition on CLAT

In 2015, Prof. Samnad Basheer filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court of India questioning the manner in which the CLAT exam was conducted. In his petition, Basheer questioned the consortium saying, “Despite the growing popularity of CLAT, its planning and execution

over the years has been marred with serious institutional lapses and inefficiencies, such as arbitrary and sub-standard question papers, incorrect questions and answers, questions that have no reasonable nexus to one's aptitude for the study of law, wrongful allotments of seats, unnecessary delays and an opaque administration that fails to comply with basic standards of transparency and the norms underlying the RTI Act.” Also, Basheer alleged, “Apart from the issue of seriously defective Question Papers/Answers

Keys, the CLAT exams also suffer from severe discrepancies in terms of allocation of seats, release of merit lists, maladministration and inefficient management and serious policy inconsistencies.” Furthermore, Basheer demanded a permanent and robust system to conduct CLAT.

SC take suo moto cognizance of Prof. Basheer’s 2015 petition

As the hearing for the CLAT UG results in SC continued, Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan drew the bench’s attention towards Professor Shamnad Basheer’s petition in 2015 and the court’s subsequent decision in 2018. In its ruling regarding Basheer’s petition, the court had directed the Union of India to explore possibilities of having a permanent body to conduct CLAT with inputs from the Bar Council of India and other roleplayers.

While reading the order related to CLAT UG results 2025, the court also observed that no further steps were taken on its order in 2018, either by the Union or the BCI. The court further directed a fresh notice to the Union in this regard. While closing its judgment on CLAT 2025, the SC observed that since petitioner Prof Basheer is no more, the court will treat it as a suo moto petition and notice should be issued to all involved parties.

Next hearing on SC’s suo moto petition on CLAT

Since the court has decided to treat the petition of Prof Basheer as a suo moto petition, fresh petitions will be issued to the Union and BCI. According to the Supreme Court of India’s official website, the next hearing on this matter will be carried out on May 20, 2025. However, this is a computer-generated date and the actual hearing date may be different depending on the cause list. The exact hearing date for the writ petition is in this section once the cause list is updated.